Hi everyone. I am on my second week of daily practice with Lesson 4. For the first four weeks, i was mostly feeling wonderful...feeling the results of my efforts. For these past four days or so, I have been filled with such a sadness, a heaviness and alot of crying. It seems to me that as i am feeding myself with alot of very loving, positive, encouraging words, to change the 'programming' i've been operating out of all of my life, so much sadness and emotional pain is arising. This is probably part of a healing process (i hope) and i would so much appreciate hearing if others have gone through this as well. Also, it can be upsetting, as i come face to face with SO many ways of being that work against me, so many habitual ways of reacting, thinking,etc.. (even while i am using the self-talk constantly)..it's upsetting because there is SO much to change!! While i was doing some writing yesterday (lesson 4) i decided to write down all the 'messages' (mostly negative) that i received as a little child. Then i took EACH and EVERY one, and wrote down the exact opposite, which was the truth. I ended up with three pages of positive,loving,encouraging sentences to give to myself, to read aloud daily, in order to help to change the way i have seen myself from the very beginning. And this exercise brought up so many tears and a sadness that made it difficult to feel well during the day. So, i'm trying to see this as sadness that needs to come out of me in order to heal. Can anyone relate? Thank you so much for your input. Lindi

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Linda

I can relate. I think the crying can be part of the healing process. Let your tears wash away your sadness. Cry yourself out and then hook on to hope and go with it!

Helen

Hi Helen, I truly appreciated finding your lovely words here today. I am doing just as you suggested....just 'allowing' however i feel, not fighting it, not running from it. What i realized last night was that part of why i have felt so 'drained' these last few days, has been because my mind has been harassing me. This is something i'm familiar with. I can be doing just great, and then it starts....this perfectionistic, pain-in-the-butt part of my mind, which gives me instructions, reminds me how to use what i am learning, watches me, makes sure i am doing it 'right'. This aspect of my mind is my biggest rival!! I understand that it's yet again, just another face that fear puts on. And still, i allow this to exhaust me. Can you relate to this at all? It's a part of the mind that may as well be saying "you'd better listen to me and check out that you're doing it all correctly." So, for every single thing that occurs during a day....it 'bugs' me to go over everything i'm learning, step by step, to get it right. Well, this CAN'T be a sane, healthy way to go about healing!! So, i can see this has been acting up lately and naturally, has exhausted me. Today, i am practicing refusing it's entry!! So long for now...have a wonderful day! Lindi

Lindi,

I think that we do need to grieve our old stuff, even if it wasn't good for us. It's been a part of our life for so long, a part of us for so long, that it does need to be grieved. I'm just starting week 4, so I'll be interested to see if I have the same reaction. I am a little scared to give this up at times, it's the only thing I know, you know? I think your tears are part of the healing. We've done so much damage to ourselves over the years, that that child inside needs to grieve. Be good to yourself and I'm sure I'll be talking to you soon.

Jeanne

Hi Jeanie Beanie...did i spell that right? Thank you so much for your input. It's true, there's grieving to be done and i know it's healthy. I am quite sure that i'll be having the same type of experience while i'm proceeding with the 'anger' tape...that's next. Have worked with anger in therapy, on and off throughout the years, and was not willing to give myself to it fully. Was fearful of the rage. Having a stronger foundation beneath me now (within me) i believe i can experience WHATEVER lies inside of me, 'knowing' i can land on my feet. With certain feelings, like anger and especially fear....it has always seemed that if i surrendered to it fully, i'd never come back. Good old fear! So, i know we have to allow whatever comes up, to express itself. Until recently, i have been hesitant to ask for help and support on this Forum and have mostly been giving it. I'm asking now, and i truly appreciate your reply. God bless, Linda

Hi Lindi. I can relate, but I was afraid to feel anything, especially sadness. I had a lot of buried feelings about stuff past and present. I started seeing a great therapist, and it freaked me out that all kinds of feelings came out, lots of tears, anger, guilt, grief, sadness. He said it was all part of the healing process and very healthy to express it all and I believe it. Because over time, I started to feel so much better for letting all that baggage go. I was afraid to feel my feelings for as long as I can remember. I learned that it's good to express them in a very self-nurturing way. I had no idea how to do that until this year. It was the start of the road to recovery for me and I am much better and healthier for having gone through it. Feel your feelings and I believe you will be too.

Hi JBean, Thank you so much for your words! Truly appreciated! I've made a few postings around this topic, one way or another and haven't had much feedback. Perhaps alot of people aren't needing to go through the nitty-gritty pain and rage from early,early childhood....everyone is different. This last week i went through something where....rather than express all my childhood anger, i just fell into hurt and pain and it did me in for a few days. I can 'see' clearly that this anger HAS to come right out of my system and i'm thinking of employing my previous therapist (she's a gem) to be with me while i do this. Thank's for your support and affirmation of how necessary this is! God bless, Lindi

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Originally posted by Lindi:
Hi JBean, Thank you so much for your words! Truly appreciated! I've made a few postings around this topic, one way or another and haven't had much feedback. Perhaps alot of people aren't needing to go through the nitty-gritty pain and rage from early,early childhood....everyone is different. This last week i went through something where....rather than express all my childhood anger, i just fell into hurt and pain and it did me in for a few days. I can 'see' clearly that this anger HAS to come right out of my system and i'm thinking of employing my previous therapist (she's a gem) to be with me while i do this. Thank's for your support and affirmation of how necessary this is! God bless, Lindi

Hi Lindi. I just wanted to add that my therapist never asked me to dig up my past. Whatever I wanted to talk about was fine. I would bring it up from time to time to get the pain out. He would say that I'm my own safe place to let the emotions out. His philosphy was, that I'm an adult now, and that my past doesn't rule today or my future. I had to get out the pain, but then I moved on. And that's the point of it all. Not to dwell and say "poor me, look at what I had to deal with as a child, and so that's why I am the way I am" but to express the pain in a nurturing way to myself, and then let it go and move on, with the knowledge that my past does NOT rule my today or my future. It was like cleaning house because I had all that baggage. But what a relief when it was done. I was not on medication, so this was sometimes hard and an uncomfortable process, but I know it was a really healthy process for me
God bless. JBean

Hi again JBean, thank's again! Let me explain just a little. For ALOT, there is no need to experience the past and it is enough to just 'see it', feel the feelings in the present tense,etc.. I agree. What i am talking about is getting out all the anger which i felt as a small child IN ORDER to release it and to be free of it! Because it DOES affect our present day and often comes out in all kinds of ways...in ways that won't submit to the practice of 'dissolving' the anger, because it needs to be 'resolved'. So, i understand what you are saying and at the same time, i know there is a big difference between just re-experiencing whatever the feeling is and remaining in pain (this goes nowhere) and really feeling what we felt long ago and have buried, and to finally express what we needed to express then. There doesn't seem to be a 'formula' for this...sometimes it's needed and sometimes not. But if there is one thing i DO know, it's that beliefs and feelings DO run our life, out of our consciousness, until we face them head-on. So, perhaps we are talking about the same thing,really. For most things, the lessons in this program help enormously. For certain things, a different kind of 'process' is needed....i know this from my own fundamental changes that have taken place in therapy and from the way in which i work with others....as a therapist myself. (Yes! a therapist with panic disorder!) The Psychologist, Alice Miller said: "It isn't the trauma that makes us sick, it's the repression of the trauma". And that kind of applied to what i've been going through lately...'stuff' has been emerging, on it's own (i didn't look for it!) and yes, it's painful and i know i can deal with it. Has this made any sense to you? I really appreciate your sharing. Let's keep on keeping on! God bless, Linda

Hi Lindi. I agree with what you're saying, and I think we're on the same page and you're on the right track. You recognize what your negative voice (in whatever disguise) is saying to you and you can come back at it with your true compassionate self. I was also a big-time perfectionist. Working on that. How are you feeling today? By the way, my therapist also had panic attacks! The hardest thing for me to learn was that I was my own safe place, that it was okay to cry and to feel angry. I had repressed feelings for years and years that I was afraid to let out. Well, I didn't choose to start dwelling on the past either, but in my sessions stuff just started coming out and the emotions came out. And to my surprise I would find myself several times laughing through my tears because it felt so good to release it! Because I live alone, being my own safe place has been very hard. I'm still not very comfortable expressing my feelings to myself when I'm alone because they scare me a little still. But I have seen the progress this makes in my sessions and I'm working on it. The day after a session like this, I would feel very anxious and panicky. Worse than before. This is normal, too. Lucinda felt worse before she got better. This is all good. I am feeling much better than I did 6 months ago. I still have tough days once in a while, but I have hope now that I'm getting stronger, because I believe the process I'm going through is working. A year ago, I didn't have any hope and was scared sick. God bless, JBean

Hi there JBean! So good to receive your reply. You asked how i'm feeling today...thank you! I'm feeling okay and alot of that has to do with my having taken a 3-day break from the program...i 'knew' i needed that. I've decided to concentrate, for now, on working with the panic attacks and lesson 3....going backward, but not really. (i'm at lesson 6) I'll tell you why your response of this morning was like a 'gift' for me. (how do i put this into a few sentences)... I've been dealing with something within myself and have been given a couple of what we are calling 'practice opportunities'. This 'something' is around the issue of...me wanting to be understood...to put it simply. I have wasted much time throughout my life expending energy uselessly....trying to get the 'other' person to see what i am saying. This doesn't occur with most people...in those cases, it hasn't been a problem at all. I can see where this stems from....SO important to be taken seriously and given understanding and respect when we're very little. If we didn't get that, then some of us often find ourselves re-enacting this behaviour, even if we KNOW it really doesn't MATTER if someone doesn't 'get' what we're saying! So what!! But when it's (what i consider) an 'important' isssue, this old behaviour acts up in me....wanting to say or do whatever i can to get that person to see what i'm saying. WHAT A WASTE OF TIME!!!! It's kind of appropriate when you're little, cause if you don't get that, then you feel all alone, but as an 'adult' it just isn't necessary. So anyway, in the last 24 hours, i encountered a few situations...two of them being on this forum...and one other. I explain what has been (or is) true for me, and the other person tells me this can't be so!! I understand this (intellectually)...that people believe whatever it is THEY know and often won't even consider that something else exists outside of that! I realize i am being vague about that example. So, i ask myself, "do i persist in explaining more, or should i just leave it alone....after all, it just doesn't matter what that person thinks." This is HARD for me, and so important to work with. It's easy for me to 'let go' of things that don't matter so much, but when it's something i consider important...it's so hard. Am i being clear, without giving examples?? I CAN, however, tell you what i've experienced twice on this Forum....where i have written what i 'know' is true for me, based on personal experience and i get back reasons why what i have said is 'wrong'!! Bizarre! And why should i even care???? You know J.Bean, i wasn't even sure that how i replied to you...wouldn't put you on the defensive, as i chose to explain myself further in a way you might have absolutely disagreed with. I've thought alot about this entire topic during the last 24 hrs. and am practicing (yet again) NOT EXPECTING MYSELF to have to explain, if someone disagrees on something important to me. It's enough that I know it's true! Is this kind of thing an issue for you? I realize what i'm talking about has nothing to do with my original posting. But i seem to be going through something different on a daily basis. You said "it's hard to learn that you are your own safe place"....nobody could understand this more than i!! Having had panic, and fear of panic...for SO many years, this is a tall order! Again...i 'know' this is a fact...in my head!! I look forward to the time when my 'body' knows this too!! I practice all the steps for panic as well as i can, and then when i am further from home than i usually am, on a 'practice walk', there is nothing inside this body that BELIEVES that I am my safe place!!! Sometimes i feel i can't take it another minute! I do believe this can and will change. It's amazing work we are doing, because we...who have been terrified of what is going on inside of us...are being asked to depend on 'ourselves'!! I KNOW this is going to be SO FREEING!! And i want to praise you for the work you've been doing! So great that you are feeling so much more hope and so much stronger than one year ago. You said that when you are alone, feelings can scare you. I'd like to suggest a wonderful book called "The Manual for Voice Dialogue" by Hal Stone and Sidra Winkleman. You can get it from your library. Or buy it. Too lengthy to explain here, but it is such a gentle and brilliant technique for gaining understanding of what is going on in yourself. Okay, i have taken up SO much space...hope this wasn't too long for you!! Have a fabulous day and talk with you later. God bless, Lindi

Hi Lindi. Thanks for the book suggestion! I'll look into it. I have read about 20 books in the past year around the anxiety topic. The last one was really interesting, titled "You Can Be Happy No Matter What." It's all about the ways we think, and how it affects our happiness. Forgot who the author is, some PH.D. but I got it on amazon.com. I can relate to what you're saying. Except I refer to it as "my need to be right no matter what." I got this trait from my father. This comes from the fact that I had low self-esteem, so to cover my insecurities about myself, I always had to have the last say, or go out of my way to be right and have the other person agree with my point of view. It goes hand-in-hand with being a perfectionist. I've learned though that we all live in our own separate realities. What's believed to be absolutely true for one person could be totally false to another in their own reality. You recognize this. That's a huge step in itself. Just recognizing that you would like let it go when you feel you still aren't understood is progress in and of itself. I found when my self-esteem improved, I didn't care so much about what others thought, I didn't have to go to such great lengths to prove my points anymore because I didn't care as much or need the approval so much. I also agree that taking breaks from this once in a while for a few days is a very good thing to do. Focusing too much on thinking and analyzing and working on the exercises, etc, etc, stresses me out! I found I did better when I took a few days off and focused on staying busy with other activities in daily life really helped. Well, hope I made sense up there! Have a good day! God bless. JBean

Hi JBean, This reply will be shorter than i'd like it to be, because i'm so tired....but i don't want another day to pass by without writing back to you. Hope you're doing well! The book i mentioned above, is not about anxiety. It's one fabulous book which explains and then teaches how to dialogue with the different aspects of yourself....it's not some New Age technique....Carl Jung talked about this a long time ago. Would be a bit difficult to really explain what it's about here....but you get insight into the NATURE of how you work inside, the various 'part's of us....like: the critic, the frightened child, the magical child, the rescuer, the part that holds the 'life-force', the tyrant, on and on.....doesn't mean we're multiple personalities! But we sure are 'fragmented', which causes so many problems. Something happens when you really 'see' the dynamic going on in there, and it's such a great tool.... they teach you HOW to dialogue with these aspects. It's great to do with a therapist and you can also use it on your own. Regarding that area of "the need to be right"....of course i know what you mean. But in the instances i was talking about, it truly wasn't about being right....i couldn't have cared less who was right or wrong, i only hoped i'd be BELIEVED!!! THAT was the frustration. To be told that something you KNOW occured, that doctors witnessed (again, i realize how vague i am being)....and to have someone tell you it's not possible...it's baffling to me!!! Anyway, i've put that whole thing to rest. Enough people know the truth about that thing, and i'm okay with it now. Have a lovely day, and i hope we talk again soon. God bless, Lindi

I can relate to this topic quite a bit today. I am struggling with tape #4. I understand it intellectually, but my heart is having a hard time grappling with this whole aspect that "life is not fair." I keep trying to say this statement to myself like Lucinda did for her son, Sammy. However, I feel like my whole being wants to reject the truth of this statement. I feel the reality of this statement when I say it and quite frankly it scares me. I try not to be scared, but it is hard. This tape was so hard for me that I have been doing it over 2 weeks. I also am experiencing a whole lot of tears this week. As I struggle with this tape, I am going through a whole range of emotions. I was just wondering if any one else felt the same way I did when they listened this tape.

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Hi Beth, I hope what i say can help you feel better. I posted this one several weeks ago, and have experienced some changes since then. This Lesson 4 is about expectations of others and of ourselves. I struggled with this lesson and then lesson 6 because i was trying to apply them to 'everything', and found i ran into TOO MANY 'practice opportunites'!! It is very hard, at first, to change reactions that are so automatic (especially with very specific people) AND so difficult to really 'see' how our expectations of ourselves (mine anyway) are so impossible!! And in looking at this carefully, (i'll speak for myself here) i could easily see (and it's not the first time i've looked at these things,it's just that NOW it's a DAILY observation!)....i could see just how much i expect of myself in terms of my behaviour, my 'should's' and 'shouldn'ts', and i was constantly 'watching' myself and giving myself directions....i made myself nuts!!! So, i became disillusioned and exhausted. I went about it in the wrong way. And for me too, a 'whole range of emotions' arose, very painful at times. Because the ways in which we have 'thought' and the subsequent 'feelings' have caused us alot of problems. We are being shown HOW to change our thoughts, which arise out of erroneous Belief Systems! Beliefs about ourselves, others and the world that do not serve us well! What i did after two weeks on Lesson 4, and then one week on 6, is...i took a BREAK that was much needed. During this time, i have been concentrating on giving myself (the self that has not known how to handle her thoughts,emotions,fears,etc.) ALOT OF LOVE, acceptance, attention, kindness and respect.....all that 'stuff' she should have received when very little. In a way, it's like starting over again (but it doesn't take so long). That may sound corny, but it really IS what we need! I was MUCH too hard on myself and expected far too much with those lessons!! Understanding that this will take TIME has made me feel SO much more relaxed, and so much less upset. Instead of looking at, or writing about 10 incidences and how to change my way of handling them, i maybe look at 2 a day. I tell myself "there's no rush, you're doing just fine" I cannot EXPECT myself to be able to change a lifetime of habit and wrong beliefs overnite! Does this make any sense to you?? Beth, you said you feel scared when you say to yourself "Life is not fair". What do you think of when you say that? What comes up? That statement is going to sound very scary to us, if we don't believe we can handle certain things that might happen. I think that once you feel 'grounded' and more secure...right in the pit of your stomach, then that statement won't feel so scary. Meanwhile, when you have this scary feeling, can you use the steps in lesson 2.....just notice the thought you are having (it's just a thought...it HAS no power, except if you believe it!).... allow it to be there and breathe and soothe yourself with gentle words. Hope i haven't gone on here too much. Please write back if it helps. God bless, Lindi